Yeah, hybrid builds work fine—you're just hitting them at the wrong level. The problem isn't the concept, it's that you're spreading perks too thin too early. By 30 you're still in the awkward middle where neither tree has the good stuff yet.
Here's the actual trick: don't level both trees evenly. Pick one as your primary damage source and the other as utility/survivability. Like, if you go one-handed primary, you're grabbing the damage perks in that tree first (the ones that boost damage per hit and critical strikes). Magic becomes your CC and sustain—frost to slow, maybe a heal spell, restoration for mage armor if you're light armored. You don't need master-level spells; you need the perks that make what you cast actually useful in combat.
The perks that make this click are stuff like the one that boosts armor rating when you cast a spell, the perk that staggers enemies with certain spells, and then in one-handed you want the crit damage multiplier and the armor penetration perk. They don't directly synergize on paper, but they let you play a rhythm where you're weaving spells between swings instead of trying to be equally good at both.
Also honestly—and I say this as someone who's done this build multiple times—the real issue is that vanilla Skyrim doesn't reward hybrid play as much as specialized play just because of how the scaling works. If you're open to mods, Ordinator completely fixes this by adding perks that actually bridge the two trees. But in vanilla? Just accept that one skill is your bread and butter and the other is your sauce.
What's your current perk spread looking like?
